Boxer’s carbon tax proposal would enrich people already feeding from the public trough… meanwhile Suzanne Goldenberg bags her journalism skills

While the Guardian’s environmental amateur journo Suzanne Goldenberg bloviates about the horrible possibility that some climate skeptic think tanks may have actually gotten a drop in the bucket of funding compared to all the billions of money poured down the climate research hole, we have a money and power grab move front and center by Senator Barbara Boxer (D-Ca) and Bernie Sanders (I- VT).

The transparency of this move to funnel money to people within her sphere of influence on climate matters is clear to people in the know. Here’s an article from the SFO chronicle that highlights her grab for cash:

Boxer’s push is a twist on carbon tax

Carolyn Lochhead

The California Democrat is a marquee draw for an otherwise obscure bill by Sen. Bernie Sanders, a Vermont liberal and independent. Called “fee and dividend,” the legislation is an unusual variant on a carbon tax. It would impose a fee on carbon emissions at their source, such as coal mines, raising the price of fossil fuel energy.

But instead of giving the proceeds to the government, three-fifths of the money would be refunded to U.S. residents.

Such rebates could run into hundreds of dollars. The idea is modeled loosely on Alaska’s “permanent fund” that distributes royalties from the state’s oil and gas industry to every Alaskan resident.

Sounds great right? Stick it to those coal and oil companies so they can stick us with higher bills. Yeah, that’s the ticket.

But what about that other two-fifths of that carbon tax revenue?

$1.2 trillion

The tax would raise an estimated $1.2 trillion over a decade and reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20 percent from 2005 levels. Three-fifths of the tax would be rebated to “every legal U.S. resident,” which might make it more politically feasible than if it went to the government.

The rest of the money would go to incentives for clean energy and research.

A version of the “fee and dividend” idea is a favorite of NASA climate scientist James Hansen and climate activist Bill McKibben, founder of 350.org.

Let’s see, two fifths of 1.2 trillion works out to be: 480 billion dollars. And over 10 years, that’s about 48 billion per year.

No wonder Hansen and McKibben like it. It will line the pockets of them and their friends for “research” far more so that they could ever imagine now.

But Guardian amateur journo Goldenberg is worried about that supposed “secret” funding of 120 million dollars for some think tanks from 2002 to 2010. Since she seems to want to look the other way, maybe she’s getting some of the money too.

Boxer’s been a sleazebucket since she initially took office. I disagree with Feinstein on most things and I have wanted her to lose an election for decades, but at least she won’t outright dismiss you when you disagree with her.

Omitted is that the money comes from consumers, who have to pay the higher energy prices, then much of the money is bled off by bureaucrats before being given back to the consumers (if they fill out the proper paperwork).

$48 billion divided by 310 million people is $155 per person per year.

Since 100% of the $1.2 trillion will be derived from making energy more expensive for all energy consumers, the per capita increase in energy cost would be $387 per year. A net loss of -$232. For a family of four that would be -$929 per year.

It’s really idiotic to compare this to Alaska’s permanent fund. It’s almost the exact opposite.

I read some of the comments thread on the Grauniad article. There was a lot of 97% of scientists agree, and a lot of not mentioning any of the models match reality, but nothing about sceptics getting the remainder of the $60bn funding they need to catch up with the warmists. Still, no change there then.

David Middleton says:
February 14, 2013 at 10:46 am
$48 billion divided by 310 million people is $155 per person per year.

Since 100% of the $1.2 trillion will be derived from making energy more expensive for all energy consumers, the per capita increase in energy cost would be $387 per year. A net loss of -$232. For a family of four that would be -$929 per year.

It’s really idiotic to compare this to Alaska’s permanent fund. It’s almost the exact opposite.

Ooops… Corrected post:
$72 billion divided by 310 million people is $232 per person per year.

Since 100% of the $1.2 trillion will be derived from making energy more expensive for all energy consumers, the per capita increase in energy cost would be $387 per year. A net loss of -$155. For a family of four that would be -$619 per year.

It’s really idiotic to compare this to Alaska’s permanent fund. It’s almost the exact opposite.

Typical government scam. Use a third party to take your money then give 60% of it back to you to make it look like you’re getting a windfall courtesy of the people who fleeced you in the first place. Divert the other 40% to those who will assure a hold on a position of power. Odds are the opposition party is either too dumb or too dirty to label this for what it is.

Anthony, I hope I didn’t hit a nerve picking that nit…but the detractors to your good science would latch onto something tiny like that to try to discredit your accurate reporting. They don’t have the facts or the science, so they will try to change the subject.

This bill is so predictable. I just hope Sen Boxer’s attempts can be so discredited that the President gets scared away from trying it as an executive order because it is too toxic.

An alliance of some of the world’s largest investment groups, worth a combined total of $22 trillion in assets, urged world leaders this week to take calls for action on climate change seriously.

Ceres, which represents institutional investment interests around the world, sent an open letter to the globe’s largest governments (PDF) calling for steady, consistent public policies that “encourage low carbon investment,” along with stronger international agreements on greenhouse gas reductions.

The letter follows a major report issued by the World Bank on Monday, which predicts that Earth’s climate will warm by about 4 degrees on average by the end of the century — a scenario that would devastate poorer countries, cause widespread droughts and famine, water shortages, a dangerous rise in sea levels and massive population displacement.

Omnilogos and Anonymoose are correct in their comments, but I would like to point out that ALL government programs work that way. Money comes from the consumers (all other taxes are merely pass-throughs), goes through Washington and some of it comes back. How much depends on the program. Social Security only keeps about 3% because it’s a simple money transfer, but 3% of $700 billion is still $21 billion. Senator Boxer’s 40% is somewhere in the middle. Most money spent on research dissolves in the D.C. area. The Energy Department has a $27 billion budget but bravely spends $10 billion on research…except that much of that figure goes to think tanks and lobbyists and other enablers around Washington. That’s why 8 of the 10 highest counties in household income are right around Washington D.C. As I have often said in a more political vein, a politician is a person who takes a dollar out of your back pocket, puts a dime in your front pocket, and expects you to thank him.

David Middleton says:
February 14, 2013 at 10:46 am
“A net loss of -$232. For a family of four that would be -$929 per year.”

Doesn’t that mean there is a net tax gain to the government of $929/year?

Tax revenues are NEVER strictly allocated. So all the monies that are supposed to go for green technologies actually go to general revenue, and some today, maybe some tomorrow, will go to tax breaks that are considered as revenue transfers. Some to subsidies, of course, but the serious net benefit is to general revenue.

All governments of all stripes refuse to lock in contributions to anything specific, which is why we have pension and medical and unemployment insurance shortfalls. The same will happen with any taxes here.

Previously, tax increases were justified under war costs, then never dropped. Carbon taxes are perhaps the non-war, war charges of 2013.

The lack of required accountability to the electorate for responsible government is astounding for an age with such education and access to current information. But if Bush’s lies to get the war going in Iraq don’t cause any political damage (except in the history books), you have to wonder if the electorate really cares about the governors doing an effective, let alone efficient, job.

I think some of the outrage here is overblown. Tax policy at all levels of government is structured to encourage some economic behaviors and discourage others. How the proceeds of any particular tax are allocated to budgets is part of fiscal policy. We all have different views on just what the feds and our local school districts ought to be doing with our money.

Basic research in all fields and various kinds of infrastructure spending have always been subject to the pork barrel phenomenon, and not just at the congressional level. So make a case that an increase in carbon consumption taxes at the source is bad tax policy, or argue that spending such revenue (or any other revenue) in a particular way is unwise, but drop the moral outrage posture.

Alaska’s rebate makes sense, since the money comes from the selling of assets owned by the state. Assets owned by the state are owned by all citizens of that state equally. So the checks go to all citizens equally.
They money that Pelosi is paying out comes from all citizens, but it doesn’t come from them all equally. What this bill is take from those who are successful, and hence use more energy and give back equally to everyone.
The portion that goes back to the people is also just another form of welfare for those who tend to vote Demcorat.

With Alaska, the funds come from royalties from oil pumped from State Lande.
With the Sanders-Boxer, it cannot be royalties, because the Federal Government doesn’t own the resources on private and State lands. It cannot be a royalty. It must be a tax.

Thanks to Justice Roberts, the US Government’s power to tax is effectively unlimited.

…”In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”…-Rudyard Kipling

Some things need to be re-read on occasion

“The Gods Of The Copybook Headings

As I pass through my incarnations in every age and race,
I make my proper prostrations to the Gods of the Market Place.
Peering through reverent fingers I watch them flourish and fall,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings, I notice, outlast them all.

We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place;
But they always caught up with our progress, and presently word would come
That a tribe had been wiped off its icefield, or the lights had gone out in Rome.

With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch,
They denied that the Moon was Stilton; they denied she was even Dutch;
They denied that Wishes were Horses; they denied that a Pig had Wings;
So we worshipped the Gods of the Market Who promised these beautiful things.

When the Cambrian measures were forming, They promised perpetual peace.
They swore, if we gave them our weapons, that the wars of the tribes would cease.
But when we disarmed They sold us and delivered us bound to our foe,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “Stick to the Devil you know.”

On the first Feminian Sandstones we were promised the Fuller Life
(Which started by loving our neighbour and ended by loving his wife)
Till our women had no more children and the men lost reason and faith,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “The Wages of Sin is Death.”

In the Carboniferous Epoch we were promised abundance for all,
By robbing selected Peter to pay for collective Paul;
But, though we had plenty of money, there was nothing our money could buy,
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings said: “If you don’t work you die.”

Then the Gods of the Market tumbled, and their smooth-tongued wizards withdrew
And the hearts of the meanest were humbled and began to believe it was true
That All is not Gold that Glitters, and Two and Two make Four —
And the Gods of the Copybook Headings limped up to explain it once more.

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

As it will be in the future, it was at the birth of Man —
There are only four things certain since Social Progress began: —
That the Dog returns to his Vomit and the Sow returns to her Mire,
And the burnt Fool’s bandaged finger goes wabbling back to the Fire;

And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn,
The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return!”

The power to tax is the power to destroy, and this would be a fine example of an exercise of that power with intent to destroy. The 3/5’th is to garner support from fools who don’t realize what destroying the industry will cost them.

To quote Gandalf the Grey, YOU SHALL NOT PASS!
But Barbara is free to dream. :)

I assume they are using todays consumption numbers to get their numbers soooooo if emissions go down 20% then that means the carbon tax would have to go up 20% As emmissions go down to rake in the same amount of money you have to scale up the protection racket fees. They will try to sell it as revenue neutral. Then when you ask questions they basically will say you are too dumb to understand. Dion tried this in Canada with his Geen Shift (shaft) during an election and was given the one finger salute by the voters.

Ceres develops & markets low-carbon, non-food grasses for advanced biofuels and biopower. Our energy crops can provide more fuel or electricity, new opportunities for growers and a cleaner environment for us all.

If taxes were to drive the price of gasoline/diesel from $4 up to say $20 a gallon – I’m certain that the resulting decrease in sales would still be considerably less than 80%. Gasoline is an inelastic commodity because most people have to drive to their jobs and to buy food. It would be similar to the government just putting a severe tax on food directly – people have to eat so it would be a windfall in government revenue if they dared to do it.

In either case, the end result would be a LOT more money for the government over a short term, (until the economy totally collapses under the weight of socialism), and have very little affect on big oil companies who will just pass long the cost of the tax plus an added % increase in overhead per unit on the reduced sales. (Small oil companies will die off thus leaving the big ones in complete control too.)

What we need is legislation to eliminate corporate income taxes on energy companies and instead tax them per unit energy sold however that equates in gallons of gasoline, CF natural gas, kilowatt-hours electricity, etc. That single change will put the government we the people created back on the side of we the people because the ONLY way they would see more revenue would be via an increase in the use of energy – which they can then stimulate by encouraging competition to REDUCE the price of energy instead of squashing competition and adding more and more taxes to increase the price as they do today.

Sen. Barbara Boxer is just another crooked tax and spend Marxist, looking to steal from the public to give to the bureaucrat. Hopefully she and the rest of California will some say slide under the pacific plate never to be seen again – of course when this happens it will have been caused by too much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, just ask Dr’s Darryl Hannah and James Hansen, who are renowned experts in the science of Doomology.

Ceres develops & markets low-carbon, non-food grasses for advanced biofuels and biopower. Our energy crops can provide more fuel or electricity, new opportunities for growers and a cleaner environment for us all.

So they use up arable land that could feed ordinary people for the purpose of fuel. All of which, according to Cornell University, use over a gal of (supposed-I believe oil is abiotic) fossil fuel to create.

Mike M says:
February 14, 2013 at 2:26 pm
If taxes were to drive the price of gasoline/diesel from $4 up to say $20 a gallon – I’m certain that the resulting decrease in sales would still be considerably less than 80%. Gasoline is an inelastic commodity because most people have to drive to their jobs and to buy food. It would be similar to the government just putting a severe tax on food directly – people have to eat so it would be a windfall in government revenue if they dared to do it.

Mike, your scenario is the scariest thing I have seen in a long time, and I am not disagreeing with you here. If they managed to drive diesel up 5 fold, every bit of food and other consumer good would also go up by more than 5 fold, or would be completely unavailable (a la Stalin’s Ukraine policy – crops rotting in the field because no one can afford to run the harvesters to get the crop in) . Employers would be forced to increase salaries to get people to actually work for them because for many/most people who live more than 5 miles from their place of employment, it would be more cost effective to go on public assistance than to pay more in transport costs than they get paid. The inflation that a 5 fold increase in diesel fuel would engender would make the Wiemar Republic or Zimbabwe look like the good old days. Every spec of food one buys was grown with and transported with large quantities of diesel fuel. Thus the price of food would “necessarily skyrocket”. Everything else goes from there. I don’t like this dystopian vision we’re putting together here. Mad Max, here we come.

I know there are those who say the climate change we’re seeing is a natural cycle. While I fully expect plenty of discussion in the comments section below, I think one graph shows just how much of an impact humans have had on the atmosphere. Before we get to that, let’s discuss a simpler way to account for emissions: a mass balance.

Most of the oil, gas, and coal we extract from Earth’s crust today were once a collection of algae, plants, and animals that lived 300 million to 400 million years ago. It took 50 million years of heat and pressure to transform their organic remains into fossil fuels. The process has never been repeated in such amazing quantities since, thus making these fuels finite resources.

The amount of dinosaur sauce yet to be drilled or mined is immaterial; we humans have released millions of years of sequestered carbon back into the atmosphere in a span of less than two centuries. If that doesn’t throw a big enough wrench into critics’ arguments, consider the following graph of historical atmospheric carbon levels, as determined from ice cores:

Just occured to me! (sorry, haven’t read full thread, yet, to see if it’s occured to others…)
Being I’m a Canadian, I should be wildly cheering on Boxer’s Bill for a tax grab south of the border! A no-cost, no-effort, NAFTA challenge-proof, subsidy for Canadian headquartered energy industries’ shipments south! Yay! (sarc, duh – it’s abysmal stupidity – and we’d follow, we’d have to follow suit, eventually,…even under a ‘Conservative’ government)

@ Ian E – ya, curious, “enrichen” – appears to be Middle English in origin, but passing rare in use these days – as an adverb, (or verb). Guess the title subject deserved a superlative. “Enrich” waz moar cawmen bak wen I lurnd to speek gud.

@DCA
Wow, what an ugly, ignorant, science-challenged, and populist nonsense comment thread over at Motley Fool. Couldn’t bring myself to step in it. Reminds me how pleasurable it is to have, and read, evidence-based, y’know, FACT-based, discussions here at WUWT. An island of sanity.

Bruce Cobb says:
February 14, 2013 at 12:15 pm
Morris said Republicans should find a carbon fee preferable to the new regulations Obama threatens to impose under the Clean Air Act.
“The Environmental Protection Agency is poised to go down that path,” Morris said. “Those who have an aversion to regulation should take heed. If you want a market-based solution, do it now.”
=====================
Any time someone tries to get you to act by way of threats you can be sure it is not in your best interests.

You earlier chastised people associating global warming skepticism with references to a New world Order. Unfortunately, there is hard evidence for such an association:

In the text “The First Global Revolution”, leading “intellectual elites” in the Club of Rome admitted that they manufactured the threat of anthropogenic global warming as a “unifying external threat” that would place the blame on humanity (and this would obviously make people sympathetic to the Globalist rhetoric of “global problems requiring global solutions”), and that appointed bureaucracies must replace any vestige of democracy as a governing force. The relevant chapter is called “The Vacuum”. Excerpts are as follows:

“It would seem that men and women need a common motivation, namely a common adversary to organize and act together; in the vacuum such motivations seem to have ceased to exist‚ or have yet to be found.

The need for enemies seems to be a common historical factor. States have striven to overcome domestic failure and internal contradictions by designating external enemies. The scapegoat practice is as old as mankind itself. When things become too difficult at home, divert attention by adventure abroad. Bring the divided nation together to face an outside enemy, either a real one or else one invented for the purpose. With the disappearance of the traditional enemy, the temptation is to designate as scapegoat religious or ethnic minorities whose differences are disturbing.

[…]The old democracies have functioned reasonably well over the last 200 years, but they appear now to be in a phase of complacent stagnation with little evidence of real leadership and innovation

Democracy is not a panacea. It cannot organize everything and it is unaware of its own limits. These facts must be faced squarely. Sacrilegious though this may sound, democracy is no longer well suited for the tasks ahead [so obviously the “intellectual elite” should take over decision making – as they have been doing for a very long time]. The complexity and the technical nature of many of today’s problems do not always allow elected representatives to make competent decisions at the right time.

[…]The Common Enemy of Humanity is Man

In searching for a new enemy to unite us, we came up with the idea that pollution, the threat of global warming, water shortages, famine, and the like would fit the bill. In their totality and interactions these phenomena do constitute a common threat which demands the solidarity of all peoples. But in designating them as the enemy, we fall into the trap about which we have already warned, namely, mistaking symptoms for causes. All these dangers are caused by human intervention and it is only through changed attitudes and behavior that they can be overcome. The real enemy, then, is humanity itself.” (Alexander King & Bertrand Schneider, The First Global Revolution: A Report by the Council of the Club of Rome (New York : Pantheon Books, c1991), pp. 107-108, 109-110, 115)

Then – I would like to bring up the recordings of the recent 4th World wilderness Congress that preceded the 1992 Earth Summit. Here people like you and I are called “the cannon fodder, unfortunately, that populates the Earth”. And a banking system set up by and for the Rothschilds is shown to be the centerpiece of the new mode of organization that “sustainability” measures will create. The attendees (like Maurice Strong) have no qualms about acknowledging the dominance of that family in World Affairs. Strong states that there is “no better person” to spearhead this project than Edmund Leopold de Rothschild, and that he (Rothschild) “epitomizes in his own life that positive synthesis between environment and conservation on the one hand and economics on the other” (Here Phillippe de Rothschild admits that his family is the “richest and most powerful family in the world”: http://www.scribd.com/doc/124350489/A-Rothschild-Confession
): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUdgiehz9dU

The following overview notes what this would metastasize into, that “The 4th WWC introduced the concept of a World Conservation Bank, leading to the formation of the The Global Environment Facility (GEF) of the World Bank.”: http://wild10.org/en/about/accomplishments

We can see the outlines of these proposals being promoted at the present time. In a document called “Trading Emissions: Full Global Potential” (London: The Social Market Foundation, January 2008: http://www.smf.co.uk/assets/files/publications/SMF_Trading_Emissions.pdf) – written by Simon Linnett, Executive Vice Chairman of N.M. Rothschild, London (see “about the author” section of that document). In the document, he defines “greenhouse emissions” as the new form of “social market” and states: “That such a market has to be established on a world basis coordinated by an international institution with a constitution to match…. That, perhaps, it might be regarded as having wider benefits than merely `saving the planet’ – perhaps it might be the basis of a new world order, one that is not based on trade and/or conflict resolution. Perhaps one can see a way to achieve this goal through leadership, vision and some marginal and manageable renunciation of national sovereignty, how the world might just get there. The repercussions of addressing climate change may extend well beyond that single but critical issue…. Implicit in all the above is that nations have to be prepared to subordinate, to a certain extent, some element of their sovereignty to this world initiative.” He notes that “The political costs of such loss of sovereignty are lengthy. Loss of competitiveness (massively overstated in the activities in which energy is used – especially since trade will be more difficult, if, at the margin, transport is made more costly), loss of power and loss of direct control over economic levers are potentially the most significant and give the most cause for concern. But these actions are necessary if we are to answer the accusation that “it doesn’t matter what we do when China is expanding its energy usage at its current rate” – we have to bring China and India in and they are not going to enter a scheme where they do not have a “say”. When countries are already foregoing the right of direct control over monetary policy through the creation of independent central banks, this [the above] could be a relatively small price to pay for such inclusion.” He furthermore states that “The EU member states have recognised their need to subordinate sovereignty to the EU; in time, if this is to work, the EU itself will need to yield sovereignty to a bigger world body on carbon trading.” He states “Above all, this plan requires “sponsors” – a country prepared to host it and a senior politician prepared to lead this new initiative. If such a route map could be found, then perhaps we might be at the beginning of a new world constitution and a new world order.” He states that regulating this should be a “World Environment Authority” operating from a “world city with world skills and world facilities.” He then notes, in a section entitled “A natural role for London”, “London is a world financial centre (possibly “the” world financial centre).” and that “London would make a compelling case to house the World Environmental Agency.”

Documents retrieved from the congress from which audio of Edmund de Rothschild was taken state the following (in the introductory email, I endorsed Mullins – an endorsement which I redact because he is such a problematic source, but I stand behind everything else in the email prefacing the document. The document itself gives insight into the accumulated degeneracy of the elite of the world at present): http://archive.org/download/GeorgeHuntUncedEarthSummit1992cobdenClubsPapersaldousHuxleythe_125/1-1-the-cobdenClubsPapers.pdf Excerpts are as follows: “The time is pressing. The Club of Rome was founded in 1968, Limits to Growth was written in 1971, Global 2000 was written in 1979, but insufficient progress has been made in population reduction. Given global instabilities, including those of the former Soviet bloc, the need for firm control of world technology, weaponry, and resources, is absolutely mandatory. The immediate reduction of world population, according to the mid-1970′s recommendation of the Draper Fund, must be immediately affected. The present vast overpopulation, now far beyond the world carrying capacity, cannot be answered by future reductions in the birth rate due to contraception, sterilization and abortion, but must be met in the present by the reduction of numbers presently existing. This must be done by whatever means necessary. … Compulsory cooperation is not debatable with 166 nations, most of whose leaders are irresolute, conditioned by localist “cultures” and lacking the appropriate notions of the New World Order. Debate only means delay and forfeiture of our goals and purpose. The UN action against Iraq proves conclusively that resolute action on our part can sway other leaders to go along with the necessary program. The Iraq action proves that the aura of power can be projected and sustained and that the wave of history is sweeping forward. … We are the living sponsors of the great Cecil Rhodes will of 1877 … We stand with Lord Milner’s credo. We too are “British Race Patriots” and our patriotism is “the speech, the tradition, the principles, the aspirations of the British Race”. Do you fear to take this stand, at the very last moment when this purpose can be realized? do you not see that failure now, is to be pulled down by the billions of Lilliputians of lesser race who care little or nothing for the Anglo-Saxon system? …The Security Council of the UN, led by the Anglo-American Major Nation Powers, will decree that, henceforth, all nations have quotas for REDUCTION on a yearly basis, which will be enforced by the Security Council by selective or total embargo of credit, food, medicine or military force, when required. … outmoded notions of sovereignty will be discarded and the Security Council has complete legal, military and economic jurisdiction in any region in the world, to be enforced by the Major Nations of the Security Council. The Security Council of the U.N. will explain that not all races are equal, nor should they be. Those races proven superior by superior achievements ought to rule the lesser races, caring for them on sufferance that they cooperate with the Security Council. … All could be lost if opposition by minor races is tolerated and the vacillations of those we work with, our closest comrades, is cause for our hesitations. Open declaration of intent followed by decisive force is the final solution.”

I think the important thing to remember is that taxing fossil fuel production – and, indirectly, it’s consumption – won’t only have the effect of redistributing the “extra” money spent on the fuel: It will also cause people to consume less fuel! (That’s really the point, isn’t it?) That means that people will do less of the productive things that grow the economy – build, travel, ship products, you name it.

It’s equivalent to subsidizing inactivity, since people can save more money by sitting on their asses at home, avoiding activities that require fossil fuels, namely, doing anything. That’s kind of a perverse incentive, isn’t it?

The point is well made above by a number of people that raising the price of necessities impacts poor people the most. And energy is the necessity which facilitates development.
Elaborate tax schemes which increase costs of energy and which then give some of that tax back to the poor would have to be very precisely tuned to ensure that the wealthy reduce their usage by a lot, and the poor by only a little, to have any effect on overall energy usage. The poor will surely suffer under most scenarios, the rich will just live with the extra costs, and in the end only the bureaucracy develops.

The biggest reduction in emissions has been made because of innovations in the oil and gas industry that has made shale gas and oil so successful in the US. Gas prices at around $3 / mmbtu means gas displaces coal. Will any of the funds raised by the Boxer proposal go to the real source of emissions reduction (ie will the money go to increase the amount of shale gas being produced)?. Of course reporting on this matter was another area where Ms Goldenberg tried to spin the reduction in emissions as a result of a small change in renewables rather than the larger change in the use of gas.

But but… the money that would go to each US citizen would also be taxed… So people I’d receive 60% of my share. The result? Another boon for Green Energy as the price of fossil fuel edges up due to this (if it passes) and to feed-in-tarifs and other sin taxes as well as EPA’s other regulations that consider CO2 as pollution. A little bit here, some more over there, and eventually, green energy, which is heavily subsidized, looks like a less of a bad deal.

When we consider some of the comments above; the billions of funding to alarmists; and the graph WUWT published a year or two ago showing the changes in number of climate stations versus temperature–we have proof of globalist conspiracy if you can face such a thing.
And what is behind it?–apparently the desire for a global carbon tax, to make the very, very wealthy richer. After all, they are so rich in the first place because they value money–and control.
Al Gore is a good example–he is a multimillionaire politician whose father was a Congressman. All his life, he has lived at taxpayer expense, so he thinks of money and the good life as coming through taxes. Being normal in this respect, he wants more than he has. Most of us do. So how do you get more tax money? Well, a handy new tax.

But there is a catch–the people are tapped out. They simply WILL not actually pay more taxes. Rates can be raised or new imposts cooked up, but the result will be employers leaving the country, illegal immigrants working “under the table” and other black markets, and the harder they try to squeeze more milk out of the dry cow, the more she will collapse. That is what is behind the world’s current economic crisis–governments trying desperately to grab more than people will give, resulting in a collapse of production.

cmarrou said “Most money spent on research dissolves in the D.C. area. The Energy Department has a $27 billion budget but bravely spends $10 billion on research…except that much of that figure goes to think tanks and lobbyists and other enablers around Washington. That’s why 8 of the 10 highest counties in household income are right around Washington D.C”

Living and working near DC I can vouch for that. The Defense-Industrial complex is part of the problem, but it’s really all part of the same larger federal government and contractor complex (same players, same waste). There are multiple 10 billion+ dollar contracts to buy “IT services” which translates to “everybody upgrades perfectly good hardware with new hardware and we waste millions trying to set up simple servers often ending in failure”. There are multiple billion dollar companies that are allegedly non-profit that are full of highly overpaid people that look like Keith Briffa and do almost nothing except pontificate about their brilliance in meetings. There are buildings full of government employees where almost everyone is a manager and passes paper or bytes from other managers to yet more managers except instead of actually doing it, they have a couple of SETA (systems engineering and technical assistance) contractors who do it for them when they are not busy doing other busywork.

It’s a mess. People ask, aren’t you afraid of losing your job and the local economy going in the crapper (with sequestration)? Yes and yes. It’s a small start. A lot more needs to be cut including all departments outside of defense (defense is taking the most cuts this time).

What I do not understand is why anyone would take this bill seriously when it comes from an avowed socialist and by far the dumbest member of the Senate. Perhaps the press who give credence to this possess the same two attributes.

The saying, ‘if you only have a hammer, all problems look like a nail’ comes to mind.
Barbie & Bernie have been talking to the lawyers again, so their solution to the ‘global warming problem’ is to follow the successful class action gravy train lawsuit model, except this time you don’t have to actually settle a case. You pick the industry, extract the money, pay your pennies to the class and keep the 40% for the lawyers. The only winners are the attorneys and politicians because they can leverage their 2/5ths vig to buy more votes, campaign contributions and influence.
As Samuel Johnson said: “I do not care to speak ill of any man behind his back, but I believe the gentleman is a lawyer.”

abinico warez: You have conflated at least three different things together.

1) filth and boxer – OK – I get it
2) tax Wall Street – it is taxed all sorts of ways
3)change the tax rate to apply only after you make 100k. – It does change, a lot. We who make more get raped. But the harder you make it for people to get wealthy, the more hopeless you make it for yourself. Think about it. It sounds like you are not ever expecting to do well, so you just want to take it from me.

I am sick and tired of people who think it is NOT their responsibility to contribute to the spending their people vote for. Why don’t you (abinico) think about the envy you have for people who contribute many times more than people such as yourself? Why don’t you ask what you can do for your country instead of ask what more I can do?

abinico warez says: February 15, 2013 at 5:30 pm“….Boxer is a millionaire – filthy rich with emphasis on the filth. Why don’t you tax Wall St and leave working people alone?…”
Mario Lento says: February 15, 2013 at 9:13 pm“….Why don’t you ask what you can do for your country instead of ask what more I can do?…”
Me says: February 15, 2013 at 9:35 pm“…Mario Lento, how much more have you done? …”

Ah, the old tax issue. Old style income taxes are probably not the answer. Perhaps more focus on consumption or transaction taxes is the answer (if they can be automated so as to not incur such an administrative burden as they now do). Good system, the more you want to consume or transact, the more you choose to contribute to society.
Perhaps couple this with employment laws and food outlet laws (Singapore style) which allow the poorest of the poor to get jobs, and run small (food) businesses, and all to eat well and cheaply.

But, this is about (usually wealthy) people telling the rest of us to lead more austere lives, while they will simply soak up the costs and proceed with their lifestyle as usual. As Hans Rosling so wisely says: Of the top level consumers (the rich) ..”… until they have the same energy consumption per person they should not give advice to others what to do and what not to do…!!! …” (Hans Rosling and the magic Washing Machine) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sqnptxlCcw

People whose main worry currently is what colour the third Ferrari or Roller in the garage should be are not likely to flinch at a hike in fuel or power bills, are they?

@markx says: “But, this is about (usually wealthy) people telling the rest of us to lead more austere lives, while they will simply soak up the costs and proceed with their lifestyle as usual.”

Do you think taxing the rich is about wealthy people telling “you”…? It is in fact the other way around. The rich are told by the poor that they need to pay a larger share of their income to pay for the poor, and all things needed by the poor. The wealthy, contrary to your un-thoughtful statement, would be quite happy for the less affluent to earn and pay more of their share.

I do agree that a flat tax would be a good start in cleaning up the mess. But then I see people like you complaining that the rich are not paying enough… and soon, the mess would return to what we have today. In a republic (which is what the US is supposed to have) the minority is to be protected from the majority. However, that is no longer the case.

“… It is in fact the other way around. The rich are told by the poor that they need to pay a larger share of their income to pay for the poor, and all things needed by the poor….”
Re: “But, this is about (usually wealthy) people telling the rest of us to lead more austere lives, while they will simply soak up the costs and proceed with their lifestyle as usual.”

The “telling us what to do” statement was more in regard to the surfeit of millionaires and billionaires trying to save the world by reducing everyone else’s carbon footprint while they continue “business as usual” …. because they can afford to .

Income tax is a whole separate issue, but in regard to both income tax and carbon taxes, it is worth contemplating the fact that for the man at the bottom of the pile there is no such thing as ‘discretionary spending’…. this was brought home to me from years of managing business in a third world country, where I’d have men sitting in front of my desk explaining why they needed a pay rise or a loan (and often both). These guys might be on US$100 per month, whereas their local managers would be on US$1000 to US$2000 per month, and most expat managers were probably on about US$10,000 month. I’d spend more out having a drink with friends in one night than some had in a month to feed their family, send their kids to school, pay for a house, and perhaps pay off a motor bike (albeit a much cheaper school, a much smaller house, and an older second hand motorcycle than we’d imagine). I don’t know how they did it, and I was always being chastised from above for the pay rises and interest free loan schemes I provided.

Funny thing was, when it came to pay rise time, or loans, the local managers, already 10 or 20 times better off than their subordinates, always had a great argument as to why they needed a bigger percentage pay-rise and bigger loans than the workers.

While these things are obvious in third world countries, and there are no social security systems at all, in western societies it is sometimes very easy to lose sight of how those less well off than us are struggling.